As anyone who watched more than 15 minutes of the Winter Olympics was aware, NBC's new family drama Parenthood premiered last night. The show, which is produced by Ron Howard, depicts the trials and tribulations of a large extended family in California. Like a thousand shows of its kind before it, Parenthood seems to be as much about "issues" as it is about people. This series really interested me because, well, I'm gay for family television shows, plus I don't think Ron Howard has ever been involved with a project I disliked.
Here is a cursory breakdown of the characters and the major plots taking form in the first episode:
Zeke- The patriarch (pronounced with a "ch" sound, wink, wink) of the Braverman clan. He seems to want his grandchildren to be raised the way he raised his own children which causes a bit of friction. He might be a Vietnam vet and has the misfortune of delivering the episode's weakest piece of dialog in which he compares parenthood to war.
Camille- Zeke's wife. She strikes me as kind of a aging flower-child. She didn't receive a whole lot of screen time in the pilot, so there isn't a bunch to be said about her for the moment.
Adam- Zeke and Camille's oldest son. He is sort of the Michael Bluth of the family, the guy the other family members rely on to solve their problems.
Kristina- Adam's wife. She and Adam find out late in the episode that their son Max, who they had always assumed was just a little weird, actually suffers from
Asperger's Syndrome.
Sarah- Zeke and Camille's eldest daughter. She and her two teenage kids are forced to move back in with her parents after her marriage to a drug addicted musician collapses. In the pilot she reconnects with a high school boyfriend, played by Mike O'Malley. Her daughter is a rebellious trouble maker and her son, who appears to suffer from depression, puts his deadbeat father on a pedestal.
Crosby- The Braverman baby brother, played by Dax Shepherd (who is not as annoying in this show as he typically is). He is a slacker who works as some kind of music producer. His girlfriend is baby-crazy (going as far as keeping a canister of donor sperm in her freezer), but Crosby is not ready for children. Eventually he relents, agreeing to have children with her in three years. In the most unexpected twist of the first episode, Crosby discovers that he is already a father when his ex-girlfriend pays him a visit with their son, Jabbar, in tow.
Julia- Zeke and Camille's youngest daughter. Julia is a high-powered lawyer who is jealous of her toddler's preference for her husband.
My initial reaction to Parenthood's inaugural episode, aside from being amazed at shear volume of characters and stories thrown at the audience, was "Goddamn, that was surprisingly serious and borderline depressing". It seemed like the family just took one blow after another. Adam's kid has Aspergers, Sarah's kid ran away from home to try to live with his drug addict father, her other kid gets arrested for weed, Julia's daughter loves her father more than her, Zeke's son doesn't want to raise his boy the way he was raised, etc., etc. There wasn't even much comic relief from all the misery. Don't get me wrong, by no means do I need my t.v. families to all be Cleavers or Cunninghams, but for fuck's sake, can't we lighten the mood up a bit? I know being a white, suburban parent is hard, "Oh no, my kid has autism! What are we going to do now?". Doesn't pretty much everyone have autism these days? It's this generation's ADD. Since when are dressing like a pirate and sucking at baseball symptoms of a mental handicap? Granted, the scenes feature Mike O'Malley provided a bit of levity, but all that was negated when Sarah's son walks in on them during post-coital 'fridge raid and freaks out (sounds funny on paper, not so much on the screen).
That said, I didn't hate the show (my girlfriend, who I was watching it with seemed to, but she pretty much hates everything) and I am not ready to give up on it so soon. I look forward to seeing each of the individual characters fleshed out over the course of the season and I can see myself continuing to watch it. I just wish I felt a little more positive when the episode ended.
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1 comment:
Dude, it's real life for a lot of folks after they get married and have kids. Don't worry, we've all said it would not happen to us yet it does. And in this show, which I just finished watching on tivo a few minutes ago, the fact that the parents had so many children then the children have multiples the fun, games, and problems just multiply accordingly. I felt it was very true to what real life is like under those circumstances which is at least one of the reasons why I take a couple of anti-depressants daily. It's a lot. A person in your position can watch the show and it may help in your decision as to whether or not you want to enter into this world of parenthood. There is a very small population of people who are able to do it better and more easily. But that's just my expert opinion...Stephanie
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